Grammar with style

Grammar with style

Good grammar is about clear communication. Grammar rules exist to prevent confusion for your audience. Any grammar rule that makes it harder for someone to understand what you’re trying to say isn’t serving its function.

Style, on the other hand, is less about rules and more about preference. But keeping style in mind never hurts when trying to get your point across. Copy that has a consistent style means there aren’t any potential distractions for your audience; they’re just getting your message.

So, let’s take an amble through some style and grammar points.

Capitalising on your writing

When you want to emphasise the importance of a word, the temptation is to capitalise it. For example, ‘We all share a Love for Chicken Nuggets’. Capitalising this way is fine for poets, unfortunately, not as helpful for copywriters. This approach can lead to inconsistencies within the text and detract from your copy. Overall, unless it’s a proper noun, you’re generally safe with lower case.

Capitalisation can have specific rules depending on the context. For example, when you’re referring to the federal Budget, budget is capitalised, and prime minister is capitalised when referring to a current prime minister. Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, First Nations and Indigenous should also always be capitalised.

You can usually check whether a word should be capitalised by finding a specialised style guide or consulting the Macquarie Dictionary and the Australian Style Manual.

But there are also choices to make when it comes to capitalisation. Titles and headings, for example, can be written with minimal or maximal capitalisation. Minimal capitalisation means you’re only capitalising the first word and any proper nouns, like, To kill a mockingbird. Maximal capitalisation means you capitalise the first word and all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs and you don’t capitalise prepositions, articles or conjunctions, like, To Kill a Mockingbird.

Maximal capitalisation style is traditional and more formal, whereas minimal capitalisation is a bit more casual. The Style Manual generally recommends minimal capitalisation, but ultimately the decision is up to you or the style guide you’re following.

1, 2, 3, list consistency

When writing a list, simple is best.

A good list:

  • has a clear sentence or phrase for each item
  • creates a consistent rhythm overall
  • includes more than one or two items.

Writing with a parallel structure also makes your lists easier for audiences to understand. To write with a parallel structure for a list, each item starts with the same type of word (like noun or verb), same tense (present or past) and same sentence type (declarative or question).

When you use a lead-in sentence, like in the example above, make sure each item would match up to the lead-in if it were in sentence on its own. For example, ‘A good list… a clear structure’ wouldn’t make sense.

If you find yourself wanting to write long and complicated items on your list, it’s usually worth considering whether you can break up your point into different items or if it would be best said in a paragraph.

If I lie here, would you lie with me?

A common grammatical mix up is the difference between lay and lie. When referring to reclining horizontally on a bed it’s, ‘come lie down our comfortable beds’. When referring to setting an object down on a table it’s, ‘you can lay your purse on the table’.

A quick way to remember lay v lie is to think of place and recline. Place has the ‘la’ like lay and you can think of needing to lay something in its place. Recline has a similar ‘li’ sound to lie, and both conveniently happen to have the same meaning. Another trick to remember is that lie is usually followed by down, while lay is usually followed by a noun.

When we get to the past tense the grammar is a bit more confusing. The past tense for lay is laid and the past tense for lie is lay. In practice it’s ‘she laid down the law’. And ‘yesterday you lay your head down on the pillow and went straight to sleep’.

If you’re interested there are more rules, but once you’ve got the basics down, you can lie down and rest easy!

Style is substance

While there are rules and stylings that are common, there can also be a lot of ambiguity and choices to be made when writing copy.

Are you going to use em dash (—) spaced or unspaced, or perhaps a cheeky en dash (–) instead? Do you prefer carrying over Americanised spelling for American proper nouns (for example, Labor Day or Department of Defense) or making them conform to standard Australian spelling? Will you spell internet with a capital or lower-case letter?

There can be more than one correct way with style, and often it comes down to best suits the context the text is in.

It’s often helpful for organisations to have a company style guide available for external communications, so that there is consistency in your messaging. Ultimately, consistency is any brand’s best friend.

You can find some of our other grammar tips in 47 here and here.